The swooning of The Virgin on the left is not well drawn or pleasingly represented, but the faces are good. The kneeling Magdalen is almost dramatic, while the action of Joseph who is supporting the dead Body as it is removed from the Cross is excellent. Faces, feet, and hands are all good in this picture, those of the two men especially, and in the completion Perugino evidently did his utmost, and succeeded. The "Assumption" is, however, far different. Vasari expressly records the story that "when the picture was first uncovered, all the new artists censured it greatly, principally because Pietro had again adopted the same figures that had been previously painted in other of his works, for which his friends reproached him not a little, declaring that he had taken no pains." Pietro's reply was: "I have painted in this work the figures that you formerly commended, and which then pleased you greatly; if they now displease you and you no longer extol them, what can I do?"
Our artist was, however, only begging the question. His habit of repetition must by that time have been well known and understood. We have already seen how the same figure appears again and again, in somewhat different pose in his pictures, and the fault is a common one, especially in the Umbrian school; but at least the pictures are different in other respects, in arrangement, in grouping, in composition. Here, however, the case is altered. The resemblance between this "Assumption" and the "Ascension" at Lyons, the "Ascension" at Borgo and the "Coronation" at Perugia, is so close as to show that the artist had hardly troubled to make any change. The groups of angel musicians around the mandorla in the "Assumption" and two "Ascensions" are practically identical. The flying angels and cherubs below are also alike, and the changes made in the group of apostles on the ground are but slight. The Virgin who stands beneath the Christ in the "Ascension" is replaced in the "Assumption" by St. Thomas, who stands in the identical pose.
The empty tomb is, of course, introduced; the mandorla is composed of rays instead of cherubs, and the emblems of St. Peter and St. Paul are omitted; but in general effect the pictures are the same, and the group in the "Coronation" at Perugia, attributed in the catalogue to Perugino, closely resembles the group in the other three pictures. When to all this is added the fact that the "Assumption" is painted in a slovenly way, the landscape hardly more than suggested, the clouds streaky and wooden, and the draperies formal and stiff, it will be seen that the complaint made by both monks and artists was a well-founded one. The picture is certainly charming in general effect and colouring, especially in its present high position over a side altar; but it will not bear inspection, and is no credit to the artist.
He was, however, becoming careless and indifferent to his work, and, growing old, was more sensitive to the remarks of the younger and more popular men. The satirical verses that this latest picture evoked, and the complaints of his patrons and friends, were a cause of constant irritation to him; and although, as Morelli records, he had taken a house, and purchased in this very church, the SS. Annunziata, a burial-place for himself and his descendants, he turned his back upon Florence, and retired in great indignation to Perugia. His name appears no longer on the rolls of the painters' guild in Florence, but in 1506 is again recorded on the similar rolls of Perugia.
A curious feature about this incident is that in the Uffizi appear several drawings and studies which, it is said, were prepared for this very picture. If it were so, it would imply that Perugino took great pains in the preparation of the picture, and made elaborate studies for it. At the first glance a drawing of five apostles, which is the most important of these studies, might readily bear the name attributed to it, but on very close scrutiny, it will be found that it does not exactly or even closely resemble any group in the Annunziata picture, nor in the "Ascensions" at Lyons or Borgo San Sepolcro, nor the "Coronation of Our Lady" at Perugia. It much more closely resembles, and is in parts identical with Perugino's later work at Rome, in the Camera dell' Incendio, and it is for this work that I believe the studies were prepared, which the Uffizi catalogues to the Annunziata picture.
CHAPTER IX
AGE, INFIRMITY, DIGNITY, AND DEATH
Arrived in Perugia, Pietro's first work, as we are told by Mariotti and Orsini, was to collect certain sums of money due to him for pictures he had painted. From the town authorities for the "Cambio" he drew 350 ducats. From Città della Pieve he claimed twenty-five florins, but accepted, on March 29th, 1507, a house from the municipality in settlement of his claim. To the town of Panicale he wrote for payment of the balance due to him for the "San Sebastian," but in his letter made a generous offer to the authorities. Two years before, says Mariotti, he had lent fourteen painted banners to Panicale for a Corpus Christi procession, and he now wrote that the town might, if it desired so to do, keep the banners as a gift from him, but that if that was done he considered he ought to be paid the balance of the eleven florins that was still due to him. The Priori accepted his kindly offer, and on September 1st, 1507, sent him the eleven florins, for which he gave them a receipt, and they accepted his gift of the banners.
An interesting commission reached him in Perugia in 1507. The executors of one, Giovanni Schiavone, a master carpenter, commissioned an altar-piece for Sta. Maria Nuova de Servi, and this commission Perugino executed with great care.